A sustainable world from an economic perspective

A sustainable world from an economic perspective

Years after the historic United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, the world is still unable to achieve its main goal (an environmentally sustainable global economy.

Since the Earth's summit in 1992, the earth's population has increased by nearly 450 million, and annual releases of carbon dioxide, the main gas among greenhouse gases, have increased to levels New high, changing the same composition of the atmosphere and the earth's thermometer).

"In order to preserve biodiversity in the long term, we need to slow the growth in human numbers, reduce poverty in the South, and excessive consumption in the North, namely, that are pushing people to cut down trees off the face of the earth.

At the beginning of the last century, the world's population was only 1.6 billion, and by its end they were more than six billion, an increase of 4.4 billion or 300 %..

Populations are growing a driving force behind many environmental and social problems, and with humans now growing at a record speed of about 88 million a year, slowing down this human growth has become Urgent priority.

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However, population growth cannot be considered correctly without reference to the levels of resource consumption in each country.

Nearly 1.5 billion people in the world belong to the consumer class; they drive, own refrigerators and TVs, and shop in major supermarkets, They consume the bulk of the world's fossil fuels, minerals and timber and grain products in the world.

A newborn born in the United States, for example, needs to be twice as much as brazil or Indonesia, and ten times that of oil, and that's it causes his born more pollution.

With a simple calculation, the annual increase in the population of 3 million or more of the United States shows that it puts pressure on the world's resources, putting 17 million people in addition to the number of The population of India every year.

Unless the industrialized countries develop less intensive lifestyles using less polluting resources and techniques, it will be difficult to develop a sustainable global economy, whether the world's population is stabilized in the end. end up at 12 billion people, ten, or even eight.

Detailed studies conducted by the Würtal Institute in Germany have concluded that when materials are used more productively, it will be possible in the coming decades to reduce energy levels and consumption Materials in industrialized countries by one to four, while the standard of living will be actually improved, and as consumer demand increases, many businesses have reformulated Manufacturing processes and developing environmentally sustainable products.

Paul Hawkin, chief commercial officer, stated in his book “The Science of Commercial Biology”, We have reached an unsettling turning point, a point burdened with the possibilities in our industrial urbanism; Businesses either take on a pledge to reform trade, or they take society to the death dead!

When humanity was trying to recover from the shock of seeing images of the Earth from outer space in 1960, economic scientist Kenneth Bolding predicted that the insight that inspired that moment inspired It will ultimately affect the same practices as modern societies.

The Cowboy economy was increasingly defining human civilization, an economy that uses natural resources as if they were without borders, an economy that stood on the opposite side of borders. Environmental.

The day will come when this economy will need to shift to a spaceman economy that, as astronauts do, respects strict environmental boundaries, conserves resources, and promises Recycling waste.

The more societies are late in embarking on this transformation -- according to Bolding the more difficult it is to be able to maintain their natural potential.

Although the industrialized countries have reached the similar impasse on the cowboy-style economy, the poorest countries have followed their heels with regret, and so on as they are. The situation in industrialized countries - support for natural resources in developing countries has done little to address contemporary economic problems, and government support for natural resources is rare What has been successful, and since this support has often worsened the situation of the poorest of the poor, needs to become less than it is.

In conclusion, I say:

Poor countries have to choose between a cowboy economy and a spaceman economy, and they have to bear the results and the consequences, or reap the benefits, and the time is right and alternatives are in place, The choices are open to all.